


2:01AM

by ultrafreakyfangirl



Series: There are only so many hours in a day, but in that day, there are unlimited moments to be had. (Merluca) [4]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23384629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultrafreakyfangirl/pseuds/ultrafreakyfangirl
Summary: "My mother always said nothing good happens after 2AM..." She was right.
Relationships: Meredith Grey/Andrew DeLuca
Series: There are only so many hours in a day, but in that day, there are unlimited moments to be had. (Merluca) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680421
Comments: 2
Kudos: 48





	2:01AM

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place a year after this current season. Hope you enjoy! As always, I love hearing your thoughts, dear readers! 
> 
> "My mother always said nothing good ever happens after 2AM..." :P Guess that show? (It’s one of my favorites)

He realized what it was, then, looking at her, the little girl, her face as pale as he’d ever seen it, her pallor ashen, her expression sick, scared. In her eyes there was fear but there was also something distinct there, something that he recognized, from somebody else. Determination. Fight.

Her hair was a white, babyish blonde, but it would darken as she aged; her mouth curved into a smart expression, where smart meant clever, not attitude, both traits close in resemblance to someone else he knew. Somebody else that he loved, just as much as this little girl, here, on the bed in the emergency room, staring at him as though he was of the utmost importance to her, and that is what startled him.

It was this child, who was, not a half an hour ago, seven years old and thriving, now giving him this look, this same look that could have the power to heal hurt hearts, or break them. It was the same look that she gave to her mother. It was both love and distrust, her facial features twisting in a combination that was somewhat nauseating. He almost couldn’t stand to look.

“I can’t do it, Mer,” he breathed out, turning his body slightly, so he wasn’t making eye contact with the little girl anymore.

He had his scrubs on. Mask in hand. He was ready to go. Five minutes ago, he had been telling someone to prep the patient for the OR, but less than sixty seconds after the direction was given, he took it back. Told them to stop. Lock the wheels in place.

They’d been here ever since, just outside the curtained divider used to separate her bed from the other ER patients, where he just stared at her, at the little girl flat on her back, an IV buried in a vein in her left arm, who stared right back.

Andrew felt her hand on his back and let out a reflexive breath. “It’s okay. We’ll get another doctor to preform the appendectomy. Wilson can do it. I trust her.”

He turned to look at her, now. Into her eyes, ripples of worry there, on the surface, breaking up the calm. He had so badly wanted to do this for her, to show up for her, and more than that, the selfish, vain, part of him wanted _this_ to be the thing that put him as her equal. He couldn’t understand what was keeping him. Or at least he hadn’t, not right away.

Not until that little girl called out to him, her voice meek, somewhat broken by the heavy sobs, she’d cried and cried earlier into the hollow of her mother’s neck, about her stomach being _really, really sore._

“Andrew…are you going to operate on me? Because mommy can’t?”

He got up the courage to look straight into those, absolutely beautiful blue eyes, nearly grey, reminding him of a magnificent storm; he leaned forward, closer to her, and reached out a hand to card his fingers through that cornflower hair, wispier now, than it usually was and not only that, it took him by surprise that he had even noticed at all.

He broke eye contact for a second, the earnestness in her sweet, angelic, face almost too much, and his gaze settled on the hospital bracelet that made home around her petite wrist. _Ellis A. Shepherd._

 _Alexandra,_ he remembered Meredith telling him once, _for my sister, Lexie. She died in a plane crash_ _almost_ _seven years ago now._ Andrew sighed, took her tiny hand in his. Operate was such a big word for such a little girl. “Ellis, my little _principessa,_ I can’t operate on you today.”

“Why? Is it because I’m your little principessa?”

Again, Andrew felt Meredith’s hand on the middle of his back, could practically feel her smile through her touch, and it gave him the strength to push forward. It was about time that she heard this too.

“Well that, yes, but it’s also because I love you, sweet girl.”

Ellis’s eyes widened, looking even rounder with her shocked expression. “You do? Do you love me like Mommy does?”

Andrew looked to Meredith now, who had tears glistening in her eyes, in the expression that still showed weariness due to their circumstance, but now also showed a kind of peacefulness, and love; for him, for her daughter, for her other two children, for what they could all be together, as a family.

He looked back at Ellis, knowing that this was their moment, and if he were to look at Meredith any longer he would want to kiss her, and to never stop.

“Yes. Just like your Mommy loves you.”

“Can I call you Daddy then? Please Andrew? My real daddy died before I was born. I didn’t know him, so I couldn’t love him.”

Andrew audibly gasped, and there was Meredith’s hand on his back again, tracing circles. “It’s okay,” she whispered to him. “Andrew…it’s okay. This is good for her.”

“Okay,” he whispered back to her. “But I want it to be okay for you, too.”

She nodded imperceptivity, but all she said was “I love you.” Somehow, that was enough, more than enough.

“Ellis Alexandra Shepherd…”

“Yeah? Why are you using my whole name?”

Both Meredith and Andrew laughed.

“Because this is really important, princess. Andrew has something he wants to ask you,” Meredith told her daughter with a bright smile.

Andrew took the preamble and ran with it, taking a deep breath. “Ellis Alexandra Shepherd,” he started again.

“Yes?”

This time he didn’t laugh. He felt strangely sober, now.

“Can I be your Daddy? If that’s…what you want, of course.”

Ellis nearly jumped out of the hospital bed and scared the both of them to death. “Yes!”

Just then, Jo came over to them. “Hey, Mer. I got your page. You want me to do Ellis’s api? With…DeLuca?”

Meredith smiled at her politely, though she wasn’t giving much away. “No. Jo, you’ll be getting an assist from Helm. Andrew is too close to the patient.”

“He’s my Daddy now!” Ellis told Jo, her eyes happy, her face flushed, more so than it had been when they’d first come in.

He was worried about a spike in her temperature. It hadn’t been at rupture panic at first, but it had been a good fifteen minutes they had been here now, and he was afraid of a sudden turn. He could tell Meredith was too, now, if the way she pressed the back of her hand to Ellis’s forehead was any indication.

“Oh yeah?” Jo said, raising an eyebrow at Meredith with a smile.

“I’ll explain later,” she told Jo, and he saw that she couldn’t help but smile back. “Right now, we have a more pressing issue on our hands. A little girl with a rapidly increasing temperature.”

After the operation that went, as Jo reported, without a hitch, both he and Meredith were sitting at opposite sides of Ellis’s bedside, both watching her chest rise and fall with the look of paranoid parents.

“It means a lot to Ellis, you know,” Meredith spoke into the quiet. “And to me.”

“I didn’t want to freak you out…or…”

“Andrew, you have to know that you are in no way replacing anybody for me. Derek, what he and I had was different than you and I have…and that’s not to say one’s not as good as the other…you need to know that, too. I loved him once, and I love you. That doesn’t change because of what my kid wants to call you.”

“Zola and Bailey – “

“Derek was their dad. And he will be to them, always. But they love you. They do. But Ellis is different because Derek died when I found out I was pregnant with her.”

“That must have been tough.”

Meredith glanced down at the form of her sleeping daughter. “It was. But that’s a conversation for another time. My point here, now, is that she never had Derek, never had a dad like my other kids. She deserves one. She deserves _you,_ Andrew.”

“Mer – “

“It’s in no shame to Derek’s memory. If that’s what you’re worried about,” she told him somberly, “I promise. I won’t ever hold you in contempt if my children want to call you dad. I love you, Andrew DeLuca.”

He didn’t say anything, couldn’t bring himself to, for a minute. Then – “I love you, too, Meredith Grey. Every part of you. Everything that makes you, you. I love you as a surgeon, I love you as a mother, I love you as a best friend, I love you as someone I can have sex with – “

At that, she laughed in embarrassment. It came out more childish than usual, which he also, completely loved. “Andrew!”

It was that exclamation that woke little Ellis from her anesthetic slumber. Andrew thought she was just as beautiful looking as before, if not a little bedraggled and without an appendix. Appendix or not, he loved her, and he would love her for all of time, biological or not, as her father. As her _daddy._


End file.
